First Day of Summer Vacation!

I thought I would blog about our summer vacation this year so we can remember all the fun we had! The kids often forget about the good stuff we do, and tell me how boring it is and how they NEVER get to do ANYTHING! So, here it goes! Weeeeee're off! We got the summer off to a good start (well, according to me anyway) by packing a picnic lunch and heading to Blandy Farm to do some letterboxing! We started letterboxing a few years back and plan to place 1 or 2 of our own this summer. I'll start by saying it was hot. Not as hot as the last few near 100 degree days, but hot none the less. The high was 93 today. And buggy. Lots, and lots of bugs. Gnats, bees, sweat bees, spiders, ants, flying ants, and even a lightening bug. Oh, and poison ivy--lots. But we were careful. I hope :)


In case you aren't sure what letterboxing is, here it is in a nutshell. There are websites that list letterboxes available to find. Each letterbox has a name and a clue/or directions on how to find it. There happened to be 4 at Blandy, that were all placed by the same person. The title was: Wild About Trees. They range in size from a film canister, to large tackle box size. Today they were small lunch type containers that were covered in camoflage duct tape, hidden under rocks and under old branches, usually by trees. We were successful in all but one find. The tree was too grown up with a lot of brush, and I wasn't going in --thoughts of ticks, spiders, snakes, and other critters deterred from that one. We did find a geo cache by accident though and made our mark in it. In each of these "boxes" you will usually find a rubber stamp to stamp in your notebook (we started a notebook when we started letterboxing. We list the title, date, sign our names, the stamp, and something that we remember from that outing. I usually take a lot of pictures too. There is also a log book, so that you can use the stamp you have created. We don't have a stamp yet, but we are the Cookie Monsters and draw in the booklets as well as sign and date it. Sometimes we make a comment as well. It is like a treasure hunt and we really enjoy it.

Here is a link to check out Letterboxing! You can also do a search and come up with other sites as well.
http://www.atlasquest.com/


That is one of the boxes above. This is Teagan (and me) posing for the camera.





Looking through the log book to see all of the people who have been there and how far they have come.


Re-hiding one of the letterboxes. Our notebook. We hadn't filled in the page yet.




Claire and Teagan finding the third one. This is what Macy was interested in doing.
Macy and Quinn were in the car. With the AC She wanted to pose Amory, her Bobobie doll
on. They wimped out. and take photos. So, she did. :D


Pictures I LOVE. These two are of Claire and Teagan. They were troopers and went all the way, even when I was done too. The last box, that we didn't find was near a wooden overlook tower that they dubbed "The Treehouse". It was cool.



The Tree House.


Tonight, Macy and Claire are at a Youth Group meeting/party at the Pastor's house. They are celebrating the graduates and just having a good time! All-in-all, I'd say a pretty good day!